In a significant development, a California district court, on August 24, handed Epic Games a partial temporary restraining order against Apple — essentially ruling that Apple can not terminate Epic’s graphics engine Unreal Engine’s access to Apple’s operating systems. However, in the same ruling, the court held that Apple doesn’t have to allow Epic’s popular game Fortnite on its App Store. The next hearing is scheduled for September 28, as this ruling is limited in scope, and was meant to preserve the status quo until the parties can submit further arguments. Apple, and Google had removed Fortnite from their app stores after Epic introduced an in-game payment system which completely bypassed their mandated in-app purchase guidelines. In return, Epic sued Apple (and Google too), claiming that it was behaving like a monopoly, and simultaneously released a video mocking Apple. In retaliation, Apple threatened Epic that it will terminate all of its developer accounts — which includes Unreal Engine — and cut Epic from iOS and Mac development tools by August 28. This action against Unreal Engine didn't go down well with developers who rely on the Unreal Engine, an industry standard development tool used to develop games like PUBG and Mortal Kombat, and TV shows like The Mandalorian. Microsoft — which uses Unreal Engine to develop its mobile gaming app Forza — publicly backed Epic’s lawsuit saying that it has an “enterprise-wide, multi-year Unreal Engine license agreement and has invested significant resources and engineer time working with and customizing Unreal…
